Four ways AI memory breaks

"I told you this."
Retrieval gap
The memory exists. The search engine can't find it. The way it was stored doesn't match the way the conversation is phrased.
Fix: Different ranking strategies for different types of knowledge
"You keep asking the same thing."
Duplicate noise
Three copies of the same fact competing for limited recall slots. Three slots to say the same thing once.
Fix: Deduplication at extraction time (cosine similarity check)
"You forgot mid-conversation."
Attention loss
The AI lost track of something said earlier in the current session. This is an attention problem. Memory engineering can't fix it.
No memory fix - this is a context window limitation
"You mixed up the details."
Stale contamination
A decision reversed three months ago still showing up as current. The old memory outranks the correction.
Fix: Weight-based deprioritization and status archiving